


A new way out

by Emtho



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Amnesia, Bucky Barnes Has Nightmares, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Bucky Is a Sorcerer, Dracula is a big part because im reading it right now, France - Freeform, Gen, Kamar-Taj (Marvel), Sanctum Sanctorum (Marvel), Sorcerer Supreme, Sorcerers, What-If, and bucky needs to learn french, deep cut, idk what to call it, my willpower is cracking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29954634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emtho/pseuds/Emtho
Summary: What if Bucky wasn't triggered by Alexander Price.What if a wandering Sorcerer found him and brought him back to Kamar-taj.What if Bucky didn't retain many memories before the serum.what if...
Kudos: 3





	1. Leon, France

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hannah Martin](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Hannah+Martin).



> dudes...  
> i did it.  
> Y'all will have to blast me in the comments if i don't keep going.

Sitting in the warm sunlight of his apartment in France was not the thing Bucky thought he would be doing while in hiding, but no one would ever expect him to be in the middle of Léon France. He really did love France, it reminded him of the time _before_ , although he could only remember fuzzy bits and pieces. Léon just reminded him of a time and place he couldn’t be anymore, with its winding streets and soft feeling. Every time Bucky went out, he’d have to stand on the sidewalk and soak it in for a few moments. A few moments that felt like home.

The sorcerers in Kamar-Taj reassured him that the longer he trained and spent time solidifying his magic, the more his mind would heal and gain back it’s memories, but he’d been training for three years and all he could seem to grasp was a soft glimpse of blue and grime, and a small voice saying “I can do this all day.”

He shook his head, hands dropping _Dracula_ out of his line of vision. Reading was about the only thing he did these days, and he was gaining a large collection of ratty paperbacks, but today it didn’t hold his attention. To be fair, the part of _Dracula_ he was getting through was just the old vampire asking about real estate in London, and the French text was swimming in front of his eyes. He wanted to get out and run, exercise on the streets of Léon, but that would be putting himself to out in the open, although he could travel out to the rolling hills. No, that was too easy for the sorcerers to travel to.

A car passed his street, echoing through his open window, and Bucky threw a glance out at the city. He didn’t know how hard the sorcerers were looking for him, but he had taken a few advanced books from the library, and the Ancient One had a strict rule of advanced texts staying in the library. She always preferred to keep her pupils in the dark about the more dangerous spells and enchantments, but that always led the students to try even harder to obtain that forbidden power. Bucky had dabbled a bit in blood magic, and regretted the consequences—just because he was a super soldier didn’t mean he would get through the after effects unscathed—but that only drove him out of the benevolent gaze of his teacher. Soon after he had recovered, the Ancient one sent Bucky to the London Sanctum.

He said a few things he regretted that day. Well, everything he said that day he regretted.

_“I wish you’d never taken me out of that stupid tank.”_

_“I’d be better off brainwashed than here with you cowards.”_

_“I know about Dormammu.”_

A headache pushed through his brow, and Bucky decided that he had to get out of the tiny room he called an “apartment”. Dropping his book on the ratty wingback he had just vacated, he slipped on the pair of boots he hadn’t let go of since he had been found. Bucky knew that they probably hadn’t been with him in the _before_ , but they were worn and familiar and it was nice to sit down and cure the leather every once in a while, creating a nice routine in his running and subsequent hiding.

Slipping into the hallway quietly—as to not wake his neighbor’s newborn—he walked through his apartment complex quietly. He could’ve used a sling ring to just step out into the alleyway immediately, but they didn’t react well to his metal hand, and Bucky always preferred taking his time, and scouting for tails was much easier if he walked and kept his eyes open.

Making sure his sleeve covered his arm, and his glove was snug, the former soldier stepped out of the stairwell and into the lobby of his apartment. There was a thin amount of people milling to and from their apartments, but it was the middle of the day. Most people were at work or school or something.

Bucky spotted Madame Cornet, his neighbor across the hall, brining in groceries. The lady had to be over seventy years old, but she acted no older than thirty. He knew he’d get hell for it, but Bucky strode over to the woman, picking up her many bags with ease.

_Mom didn’t raise a cretin_

“Madame Coronet, laissez-moi vous aider,” he said quietly, although the paper bags were already strung over his arms. She huffed at the man, but allowed him to carry the bags.

“Je peux porter mes propres courses, tu sais ça? Tu es comme mon gendre, tu penses que je suis frêle et vieux,” she rattled at him as they walked to the elevator, but Bucky wasn’t listening. Not to her anyway.

There was a man at the lobby’s main counter.

That wouldn’t be bad if he wasn’t wearing a set of training robes.

It also wouldn’t’ve been bad if there wasn’t a sling ring fitted on two fingers of his left hand.

But he was, and it was bad.

Bucky made sure that he walked calmly, but not slowly, to the elevator, and said a cheery goodbye to Madame Coronet. After the doors had closed, and Bucky was released from his chivalrous duties, he was free to quietly slip out into the alleyway and create a portal back to his room so he could grab his go bag and _Dracula_.

He had gotten to the former part of the plan before the end of a quarter-staff was poked into his back painfully.

Shit.

“James Buchannan Barnes, we take you into the custody of the Ancient One to stand trial for the theft of the Hook of Haggoth.”


	2. Chapter 2

There was really no way out of the hands of the sorcerers at this point. Sure, Bucky could snap their necks and get on with hiding, but that was wrong. He didn’t do wrong things anymore. In fact, he tried to do the rightest things he could. He carried his elderly neighbor’s groceries, he babysat for the new couple, but those were just petty things. Bucky wanted to stop terrorists and free people and stop buildings from burning.

But the staff digging into his back said otherwise.

“Hey Master Wong,” he mumbled, turning with his hands raised, “I didn’t know you left the library anymore.”

“I do for thieves.”

“I’m not a thief!” Bucky protested loudly, dropping his hands, and advancing on the sorcerer, only to be pushed back by a flash of orange magic. The cold burn of the eldritch magic trailed up his flesh arm, flattening both arms to his body, effectively trapping him.

Flicking a bit of his overgrown hair out of his eyes, Bucky looked up at Wong angrily. _He knows I wouldn’t hurt him, why is he doing this._

“Come on, Wong, I don’t even know what the Hook of Haggoth is, much less how to steal it,” he reasoned, looking over at the student that had been in the lobby, “Right? You don’t know what it is either!” 

Wong looked at Bucky, acid pooling in his gaze. Well, he _had_ stolen some books on his way out of Kamar-taj, but that couldn’t be why Wong was so angry. Maybe because Bucky had run away? Wong had been so kind to him after they thawed him out of the Winter Soldier. He helped him remember the bits of the _before_ he did recognize.

The student started making a portal with a sling ring and Wong dragged Bucky towards it, although he resisted. There wasn’t just the thought of going back into the toxic environment he created, but also the familiarity of France. Bucky, though, stopped struggling after a few minutes and let himself be dragged into the portal, watching the clean wall of the alley disappear, along with his town and home.

Wong and the student brought him back to his old bedroom, which is something Bucky wasn’t expecting. They did, however, drag him all the way there. Across the training courtyard, through the hallways, and the tearoom. It wasn’t as embarrassing as he thought it would be, though. Bucky assumed that he lost a lot of emotions through the strain of getting his brain run through a blender.

He knew that he wouldn’t be able to love again. No one would want to.

But that didn’t stop the wave of nostalgia that plowed into him as he entered the room he hadn’t seen for a year and a half. A lot of people didn’t believe that you could create such vivid memories and immediately want to have them back, but Bucky had changed so drastically a year ago all he wanted to do was to dive into _before._ Not the _before_ , when he was the true James Buchannan Barnes, but when he could really trail his hands over these books on the shelves and not see petty charms and magics. When he didn’t remember exactly where the secret compartment in the floorboards was. When he didn’t carry vials of his own blood on him at all times.

When the others didn’t look at him _like that._

But that was before, not now. Now he had to deal with the consequences and sit in the deadly atmosphere he polluted. So, Bucky plopped down on the dusty bed, heaving a sigh out. There was no way out of his situation, and really, he deserved this anyway.

Wong knocked on the doorframe to get his attention, but his face didn’t look any kinder than before.

“The Ancient One will call you when she has made a decision. Until then, you are confined to this room and this room only, leaving it will get you thrown in the dungeon.”

Bucky nodded, placing his hands on his knees, and watching as the door closed harshly. He needed this. He needed to be reprimanded—hell, thrown in jail—for the things he committed. There was no excuse. In fact, Bucky had begged the Ancient One to do just that when he remembered the atrocities that HYDRA made him do.

After she had thawed his brain and freed the few _before_ memories he owned, all Bucky asked the Ancient one to do was kill him. Fast and painless. He didn’t want to live with the things he did. Even a year after he started training in the mystical arts, Bucky still asked his teacher to end his misery. Not as often, but enough that it worried her. Enough that Bucky got somewhere in the library that he really didn’t want to be in.

And as he scratches his bearded chin, Bucky wondered what would happen if he cracked open that floorboard and used the dark spell to induce Unnatural Sleep so he just… wouldn’t be there. What would the Ancient One do if he threw his soul out of his body and spied on her. Wong would throw him in the dungeon. Bucky actually didn’t know what the Sorcerer Supreme would do, but he knew that it would be worse than a cold stone cave. The last time he disappointed her, well, she sent him to a place in which he couldn’t leave.

After too long of a time waiting in the same spot on his bed, Bucky decided he had to know what he was dealing with. _The Hook of Haggoth. Gotta figure out what that is_. Maybe it could help him prove his innocence.

Thumbing through the meager amount of books in his old room, Bucky looked for “Artifact Codes and Logging” a book he had stolen from the library his first week in Kamar-taj. Wong had more than four copies of it, and, although he probably knew that Bucky took it, never asked for it back.

Running a grimy hand over the old pages, he skimmed through the “h” section. _Hand, hoe, Hook!_

_Hook of Haggoth, No. 13 Ancient’s collection, RB London Sanctum._

_Filled with the power of one of the Ancients, Haggoth._

Well, that was helpful. Who even was Haggoth, anyway?

A couple more minutes of digging in “History of the Mystic Arts” revealed that Haggoth was an ancient, a being created before time and space, and resembled that of a lion. But, that was it. No more was listed for him.

Bucky couldn’t find any more information in his books, for there was a soft series of knocks on his door, and he knew exactly what that meant.

_My sentencing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, all the things in this fic that seem made up are actually real, ok? they're just deep cuts from Doctor Strange lore ok?


End file.
